Alanine aminotransferase: Is it healthy to be “normal”?

Alanine Aminotransferase

An examination of the subcellular distribution of alanine aminotransferase activity in pig cardiac tissue showed that about 10% of the total activity was bound to particulate material, with the highest specific activity in the sarcosomal fraction. The soluble enzyme was obtained in a high state of purity, as indicated by sedimentation velocity, starch gel electrophoresis, and spectral analyses....

Paying People to Be Healthy

User Financial Incentives (UFIs) have emerged as a powerful tool for health promotion. Strong evidence suggests that large enough incentives paid to individuals, conditional on behaviour they can control, encourages more of the desired behaviour. However, such interventions can have unintended consequences for non-targeted behaviours. Implementation difficulties that result in individuals not u...

Upper limit of normal for alanine aminotransferase: quo vadis?

Several studies suggest that a substantial number of patients with normal serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, defined by current thresholds, have ongoing hepatic necro-inflammation and fibrosis, and are at risk of liver disease progression. A major problem lies in the definition of normality. The current upper limit of normal (ULN) for ALT was established in the 1980s when reference po...

If it is to be, it is up to me.

Should antiviral treatment be extended to patients with chronic hepatitis B and mildly elevated alanine aminotransferase?

The availability of seven approved therapies, including five oral drugs, for chronic hepatitis B has expanded the indications for treatment. The decision to initiate treatment is easy in patients with liver failure, but there continues to be debate regarding when treatment should be initiated in patients with precirrhotic liver disease.1,2 Recognizing that liver biopsy is not performed on all p...